Tag: headline

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Spot The News

Can you spot the news in the following BBC Website clip?

pinger

NO?

Neither could I. This appears at first reading of the headline to indicate that they’ve found a signal from the airplane. Then you read the next bit and realise it isn’t. Maybe, just maybe the BBC should have waited for the Chinese to confirm something. The endless speculation about this airplane has driven me to indifference.

Here’s a crazy idea for the BBC News people:

How about you report something when it really is new and confirmed from two independent sources.

Can you believe that this organisation is the pinnacle of reporting in this country? No, once again neither can I. I have pretty much given up following the news. I get most of my information from the following sources:

  • The Today Programme on Radio 4
  • The New Quiz on BBC Radio 4
  • Private Eye

Here’s a recent tweet of mine to show I don’t hold The Today Programme in high esteem all the time:

pandas

Here’s a link to a recent rant about BBC News Reporting. I find that I get the general idea of what is going on in this country by listening to and reading satire. While listening to the radio I used to think that people were being a bit harsh in their picking on Ed Milliband’s voice, but that was until I heard him. Thank goodness for satire. Putting the stories in their place.

I am sure this isn’t the last of my rants and moans about news reporting. There’s plenty more to come in future communications. Happy weekend.

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BBC Headline #9

Headline from the BBC website.

Bogus PPI Complaints “Hit 6000”

My issue with this as a headline is that it is plain wrong. I know that they put the hit 6000 in quotes and therefore can pretty much say whatever they want because nobody believes anything in quotes, but quite clearly the text in the article states that it is 5661 bogus complaints. I’d argue that this is not 6000.
Perhaps I’m being petty but I always assumed the BBC had particular standards but it is clear they do not and are quite willing to “lie” to make a headline. In reality the real story is that there has been such huge miss-selling of PPI and that the banks are now making massive losses to cover paying people back thier own money. There were just more that 157,000 complaints last year (from the article) and so the bogus claim level is running at 4%. Whether that is a lot or not I’m not sure. There are probably people out there who don’t understand finance and also some people out there are complete blaggers.
I think the BBC should campain and help people understand the real story of our capitalist banks rather than sensationalise such a small part of the PPI scandal.

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BBC Headline #8

Headline from the BBC website.

Scientists create “Dr Who sonic screwdriver”

This fails on the following levels:

Quotation in Headline
Extrapolation
Bull

Quotation in Headline
I’m pretty sure they used the quotation marks here to show that they “just made it up”. Having looked at the article the reference to Dr Who was made by one of the researchers who is obviously trying to get into the news cycle so he can keep his research grant. In reality it’s an ultrasound device that can turn objects under specific conditions not just make them move backwards and forwards as sound waves would normally do. Now this is very clever but I’m pretty sure that Dr Who doesn’t use an ultrasonic screwdriver. All the references in the shows are to a sonic screwdriver that is the biggest deus ex machina device I have seen and turned me off the show.

Extrapolation
The BBC writers researchers obviously got a little excited and decided that if they followed the technological line for a few thousand iterations then we could link this current device to the Doctor’s sonic screw driver. This is rubbish. It’s like saying that because cars have improved their fuel efficiency over the last decade we should be able to travel miles on a thimble of fuel some time in the future.

Bull
It’s just rubbish to suggest that this device is anywhere near a sonic screwdriver.

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BBC Headline #7

BBC headline from the iPhone app from a while ago (18 March 2012).

Neutrinos “slow down” in new test

This headline suffers the following issues:

Quotation in Headline
Oversimplification
Bull

Quotation in Headline
As I have demonstrated many times you can get any old crank to say any old shit and then put it in a headline. Heck, you could even ask the desk jockey next to you to say something and then include their quotation. “He has a double direction reversible torch to see daylight, he’s that far up his own arse” says industry insider!

Oversimplification
Science and the method of science doesn’t follow a simple narrative or allow for simplification of its ideas. The original neutrino results were released because the scientists wanted criticism of their experiment, not because they believed the results to be true. Now, after nearly a year, they are closer to understanding the problems with the original experiment and are ready to try again. One scientific result does not a whole new paradigm make.

Bull
The neutrinos NEVER went faster than the speed of light and so they can’t have slowed down!

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BBC Headline #6

BBC Headline from the iPhone app today:

Motorists warned of ice ‘hazard’

Problems with this headline are:

Quotation in Headline
No Shit Sherlock

Quotation in Headline
Normally the weasels at the BBC use a quotation so they can state anything they want in the headline. Get some whacko to spout off: “them there aliens have stolen my memory and taken body probe photos for their files” and you can use it in your headline. You don’t really have to ask someone outside the office. Just ask the journalist next to you and claim them as a “source”. Now in this case the word HAZARD is in quotations. Does that mean that the conditions aren’t really hazardous? Or does it mean that the level of hazardness is open to some form of personal interpretation? Is ice on the roads considered a hazard or not? What knobs they are – these headline writers.

No Shit Sherlock
We have had snow reports for about a week now and the Met Office were lovely and accurate (or rather chaos didn’t interfere!). We have known it was going to be cold. You only have to look out of the window to see snow and frozen paths. Isn’t it a bit obvious that the roads might be icy too? My car shows me the outside temperature when I have the electrics turned on. Could the negative sign before the numbers mean something important? How about that funny snowflake symbol I see on the dashboard whenever it’s really cold? I hate how much the obvious needs to be stated to make people think.

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BBC Headline #5

BBC Headline from the website taken today:

Lagging pupils “don’t catch up”

This headline is lacking and, to be honest, the whole article is shocking. Headline problems are:

Quotation in Headline
No Shit Sherlock
Problematic Assumptions

Quotation in Headline
As long as someone wrote it or said it you can include it as a quotation in any headline or article. Say what you want. There’s always some nutter willing to give their opinion to give your leading headline some weight. “Crystal energies healed me” or “watch out for 23 December 2012! Those Mayans knew a thing or two”.

No Shit Sherlock
Pupils who are lagging behind in their work and understanding don’t then go on to catch up. Really! I need a whole BBC Headline to know this? How about “Some schools do really well!” or “Pupils getting better grades” or “Some schools not as good as others!”. There’s a distribution of schools or pupils, you can’t measure everyone and have everyone above average.

Problematic Assumptions
The biggest issue with the article and what the headline implies is that the bottom few pupils as measured by some arbitrary government test do not proceed to do well as measured by some other government arbitrary process. Have these people never heard of the Gaussian Distribution (the bell curve or normal distribution)? Some pupils will always be behind the others and will probably continue to be behind. Elsewhere in the article it is claimed that the top performers go on to get good grades later on. Holy Cow! This curve needs to be explained to them.

This is a graph of the Gaussian Distribution as everyone sees it:

Bell Curve

The Gaussian Distribution as the government sees it (blue version):

Bollocks curve

No one is allowed to fail or fall behind or not be clever or be too far from the mean.

 

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BBC Headline #3

Today’s (this isn’t going to be daily) rubbish BBC Headline taken from the iPhone app is:

Labour ‘should alter cuts stance’

This headline suffers the following afflictions:

Quotation in Headline
Wrong Story Implied

Quotation in Headline
As said before, you can write anything you want in a headline if someone has said it! Just ask a chiropractor about curing colic!

Wrong Story Implied
When you go and read the story you find that it’s actually a quotation from a shadow minister attacking his leadership about their stance on attacking the government (which is the job of the opposition). The real story is probably about the breaking ranks of the shadow cabinet and that a senior member of the Labour Party has spoken “off message”.

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